Business at Mrs. Lovett's was brisk. During the whole of that day--that most eventful day upon which the fair Johanna Oakley had gone upon her desperate errand to Sweeney Todd's--the shop in Bell Yard had been besieged by customers. Truly it was a pity to give up such an excellent business. The tills groaned with money, and Mrs. Lovett's smiles and pies never appeared so perfect as upon that day. At about half-past twelve o'clock, when the Lord Chancellor suddenly got up from his chair, in the great hall of Lincoln's Inn, and put on his furry-looking hat, and when the curtain which shuts in his lordship from invidious blasts was withdrawn with a screaming jerk, and a gentleman was stopped in the middle of an argument, what a rush of lawyer's clerks there was to the pie-shop in Bell Yard. Then was it that the anxious solicitor's fag, who must know something, and have some brains, smiled at the prospect of the luxurious repast he was about to have, and jingled the twopence he had kept in a side pocket for only one pie, and grudged it not out of his hard-earned pittance. Then was it that the bloated barrister's clerk, who had grown shining and obese upon fares, and who is not required to know anything but the complete art of insolence to his brothers, nor to have any more brains than will suffice him to make up his book in the long vacation, smacks his lips at the thought of Lovett's pies, and sends the expectant boy of the chamber--the snob of a snob--for three twopennies. Lean and hungry-looking young men start into Bell Yard from the Strand, producing crumbled pieces of paper, bag their twopenny, and retire to eat it in some corner of the old Temple. All is bustle--all is animation, and the side counter--that one, you know, which ran parallel to the window--was lined by clerks, who sat eating and driving their heels against the boarding, and joking, and laughing "Ha! ha!" how they did laugh! And then what stories they told of their "Governors;" and how such an one was going out of practice; and how such another one was a screw, and so on, to the great delight of the mere boys, who hoped one day to wear their hair long and grey, and to dress in an outrageous caricature of the mode! As the machine that let down at the back of the counter, to bring up the pies, went down for the one o'clock batch, it was noticed that Mrs. Lovett looked a little anxious. The fact was, that the cook had been so prompt upon that day in his movements, that she began to think there must be, as folks say, "Something in it," and she was beginning to terrify herself with the idea that he had some scheme of redemption for himself in view, that might most unseasonably develope itself before the customers.
"Ah, Mrs. Lovett," said one young gent, while the gravy ran down the sides of his mouth from the pie he was consuming. "You don't seem at all yourself to-day. Indeed you don't."
"Who do I seem, then?"
"Ha! ha! Upon my life that's good!" roared another.
A small amount of wit did for Lovett's pie shop. It was like the House of Commons in that particular, and "loud laughter" was sure to welcome the smallest joke. Mrs. Lovett's eyes were bent upon the abyss, down which the trap had descended but a moment before.
"Ain't they a-coming, mum?" said one.
"Oh, don't I sniff 'em," said another, working his nose like an ex-chancellor. "Don't I sniff 'em."
"De--licious!" cried another.
A feeling of relief was visible upon the face of Mrs. Lovett as the trap slowly ascended, bringing with it the one o'clock batch, in all their steaming glory. The whole shop was in a moment filled with the fresh appetite-giving aroma of those bubbling hot pies; and as the French newspapers say, when a member of the extreme right, or half way to the left, or two degrees from the centre, swerves, there was "a sensation." Five minutes--only five minutes--and the whole batch was cleared off, not one was left!
"Another batch of one hundred, gentlemen, at two," said Mrs. Lovett, with a bland look.
"At two, mum?" cried a customer. "Why, what's to become of the half-past one batch?"
"We are rather short of--of meat," said Mrs. Lovett, with one of her strange metallic smiles.
"The devil you are! Ain't there butchers enough?"
"Oh, dear, yes; but we could not get such meat as we put in our pies, at the butcher's."
"You kill your own, mum, then, I suppose?"
"We do," replied Mrs. Lovett, with another smile, more metallic than the former.
"And where is your farm, mum?"
"Really, sir, you want to know too much. I appeal to those gentlemen if any of them know where my farm is."
"No--no. D--n it, no, nor don't care," said all the lawyer's clerks. "Don't know anything about it."
"And don't care," said another. "Sufficient for the day is the pie thereof."
"Very good--Ha! ha!--Very good."
The crowd gradually dispersed. Mrs. Lovett put a placard in the window, announcing--
"A hot batch at two o'clock."
She then closed the shop door, and retired to the parlour. She cast herself upon a sofa, and hiding the light from her eyes with one of her arms, she gave herself up to thought. Yes, that bold bad woman was beginning to have her moments of thought, during which it appeared to be as though a thousand mocking fiends were thronging around her. No holy thoughts or impulses crossed her mind. Solitude, that best of company to the good and just, was to her peopled with countless horrors; and yet there must have been a time when that woman was pure, and her soul spotless--a time when it was free from
"The black engraved spots"
which now deformed it. And yet who, to look upon her now, could fancy that she was ever other than what she seemed? Who could bring themselves to think that she had not been placed at once by the arch-fiend as she was upon the beautiful world, to make in the small circle around her a pestilence, a blight, and a desolation? There are persons in the world that it would be the greatest violence to our feelings ever to attempt to picture to our imaginations as children; and as such, surely were Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. Was she ever some gentle little girl, fondly clinging to a mother's arms? Was he ever a smiling infant, with pretty dimples? Was there at his or her birth much joy? Did a mother's tears ever fall upon his or her cheek, in sweet gratitude to God for such a glorious gift? No--no. We cannot--we will not believe that such persons as Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett ever came into this world otherwise than ready-made man and woman! Any other belief, concerning such fiends in human shape is too repugnant. But we are forgetting that Mrs. Lovett is upon the sofa all this while, and that her metallic smile has quite vanished, giving way to such a look of utter abandonment of spirit, that you would have shuddered to have cast but one glance upon her. She could bear the quietude of the attitude she had assumed but for a very short time, and then she sprang to her feet.
"Yes," she said, "it must, and it shall come to an end!"
She stood for some few moments trembling, as though the dim echo of that word end, as she had jerked it forth, had awakened in her mind a world of horrifying thoughts. Again she sank upon the couch, and speaking in a low, plaintive voice, she said--
"Yes. I have need of the waters of oblivion, one draught of which shuts out for ever all memory of the past. Oh, that I had but a cup of such nectar at my lips!"
Not a doubt of it, Mrs. Lovett. It is the memory of the wicked that constitutes that retribution, which is assuredly to be found in this world as day follows night.
"I--I must have this," she muttered. "Let Todd be dead or alive, I must have it. I am going mad--I feel certain. That I am going mad, and the only way to save myself, is to flee. I must collect as much money as I can and then flee far away. If I cannot quite obliterate the past from my memory, I can at least leave it as it is, and add nothing to it. Yes, that man may live. He seems to bear a charmed life. But I must flee."
She rested her head upon her hands, and in a softer voice, said--
"Let me think--let me think of the means, now that I have yet a little time. What do I dread most? The man below? Yes. He is at work for his deliverance. I feel that he is, and if he succeed before I flee from here, all is lost--all is lost! I must speak to him."
Filled with this idea, and with an unknown dread of what the discontented cook might do, Mrs. Lovett stepped into the shop first, and made the door fast by slipping a bolt at the back of it. It was not very often that immediately after the disposal of a batch of pies any customers came in, and if they should attempt to do so for the purpose of purchasing any stale pies, she was by far too intent upon what she was come about, and considered it by far too important to heed what they might think or say upon finding the door fast. She then opened the seeming cupboard in the parlour, which conducted to the strong iron door, with the small grating at the top of it. She reached that point of observation with great rapidity, and peered into the cavernous dungeon-like bakehouse. At first she could see nothing by the uncertain light that was there, but as her eyes got accustomed to the absence of daylight, she could just see the figure of the cook sitting upon a stool, and apparently watching one of the fires.
"It is a long--long time."
"What is a long time?" cried Mrs. Lovett.
The captive cook sprang to his feet in a moment, and in a voice of alarm, he said--
"Who spoke? Who is that?"
"I," replied Mrs. Lovett. "Do you not know me?"
"Ah," said the cook, directing his eyes to the grating above the door, "I know you too well. What do you want with me? Have I failed in doing your bidding here? Have I disappointed you of a single batch of those execrable pies?"
"Certainly not, but I have come to see--if--if you are quite comfortable."
"Comfortable! What an insult!"
"Nay, you wrong me."
"That is impossible. This is the commencement only of some new misery. Speak on, madam. Speak on. I am helpless here, and condemned to suffer."
Notwithstanding these words of the cook there was a certain tone of hilarity about him, that Mrs. Lovett might well be surprised at, and she asked herself what does he hope. The fact is that much as he wished still to enact the character of a man full of despair, the cook could not get out of his head and heart the promises of Sir Richard Blunt--promises which still rung in his ears, like a peal of joy bells.
"Come, come," said Mrs. Lovett, "you are getting reconciled to your fate. Confess as much."
"I reconciled? Never."
"But you are not so unhappy?"
"Worse--worse. This apathetic condition that I am now in, and which to you may look like the composure of resignation, will end, in all likelihood, in raging madness."
"Indeed?"
"Yes, madam, I feel already the fire in my brain."
"Be calm."
"Calm--calm! Ha!--ha! Calm. It is all very well for you upon that side of the iron door to talk of calmness, madam, but upon this side the words sound strange."
"It will not sound so strange when I tell you that I have absolute compassion upon you, and that the cause of my present visit was to talk to you of some means by which the worst portion of your fate here might be in some measure ameliorated, and your existence rendered tolerable."
